Theology in the Russian Diaspora
Church, Fathers, Eucharist in Nikolai Afanas'ev (1893–1966)

The author at the centre of this study, Russian priest-theologian Nikolai Nikolaevich Afanas'ev, was perhaps the most influential thinker about the Church Russia has produced.

Aidan Nichols (Author)

9780521091473, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 December 2008

312 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.8 cm, 0.4 kg

The author at the centre of this study, Russian priest-theologian Nikolai Nikolaevich Afanas'ev, was perhaps the most influential thinker about the Church Russia has produced. In Aidan Nichols's careful evaluation, he emerges as a key figure in the rapprochement of Christian East and West, and most notably of the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Nichols illustrates how Afanas'ev has been influential in two key respects: first of all in his conviction that the Eucharist constitutes the foundation of the whole Church; and secondly in his contribution to an Orthodox understanding of the role of the Roman Church and bishop in the context of a united Church. Afanas'ev's achievements are seen to have continuing relevance in view of the inauguration of the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue at the monastery of St John on Patmos in 1980, and the importance of his thinking in terms of contemporary ecumenism becomes clear. It is to such a reappraisal that this book - concerned as it is with how Russian orthodoxy understands the Church - is devoted, in the hope of an eventual restoration of unity between the Orthodox of all the Russias and the see of Rome.

Preface 1. The Background: Russian theology and the idea of the Church
2. The life of Nikolai Nikolaevich Afanas'ev
3. The main monuments of Afanas'ev's ecclesiology
4. The War years and afterwards
5. Afanas'ev and contemporary Russian ecclesiology
6. An ecumenical evaluation of Afanas'ev's ecclesiology
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Christian theology [HRCM]